Healthcare-associated Infection Prevention

Iowa Department of Public Health's initiative to reduce healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) includes supporting science-based actions to decrease these infections to make healthcare safer for all Iowans.

HAIs occur when Iowans seek medical care for a health condition, such as receiving dialysis in a clinic, or having surgery in the hospital, and an infection results from this care. HAIs are the most common complication associated with hospital care. On any given day, 1 in 25 hospital patients has at least one HAI (1). Each year, 1.7 million infections occur (2), costing $28.4 billion to $33.8 billion (3).

IDPH will be actively engaged in HAI prevention efforts, with support from the Epidemiology & Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases (ELC) Building and Strengthening Epidemiology and the ELC Ebola Supplement grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Activities and resources will be available on this website as the prevention plan unfolds and the work to prevent healthcare-associated infection progresses.